Public Squabbles, Private Deal

Amid U.S.-Soviet shadowboxing, a step toward arms control

The hastily typed two-page document is hardly a model for future superpower treaties. It is brief, lacks detail and even contains two typographical errors. The terms are nonetheless remarkable: for American scientists, it provides for the placement of seismic monitors near a Soviet nuclear weapons test site in Kazakhstan, and allows Soviet counterparts to set up similar gear later this summer near the U.S. test site in Nevada. In effect, the pact establishes the first mutual on-site verification of nuclear weapons tests. . Yet the U.S. and the Soviet Union have been trading barbs about nuclear testing, and the agreement, signed...

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